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The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization.

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"I visited the Museum of Modern Art last spring and spent time with David Alfaro Siqueiros’s painting, 'Echo of a Scream (1937).' I got spun out by the way he creates tension and movement through the interlocking details in the painting. This poem began as an emulation of Siqueiros’s compositional style and, in the process, became an ekphrastic aubade about my old neighborhood."—Adrian Matejka

Mural with HUD Housing & School Bus (1980)

Adrian Matejka

When 213b finally opens in a crack of yellow linoleum,
Garrett comes out with the left side of his afro as flat
as the tire that used to be on his mom’s car & the stuck
snick of the cheap door locking behind him sounds exactly
like someone trying to light a smoke with an empty lighter.
Carriage House East, where menthols cough like a window
slamming shut & outside that window, somebody’s radio
is already popping static. What’s left of the moon is popping
white on blue. That’s when we stamp past the squat HUD
brick toward school in the dark: shadow of the green trash
can gang signed with misspellings, a mimeograph of Mickey
Mouse flipping Iran the bird in the landlord’s lit window.
We made the same middle-finger motion to the school bus
before ignoring our bus stop & kept walking neighborhood-
style—right hands skimming from chest down to waist
then behind the back like a bad breast-stroker cupping air.
Cue the sirens snagging the matted air like a cheap pick.
Cue the smoker’s cough of early-morning walks to school.
We strutted a backward lean like every one of the unconcerned
streetlamps alternating between our side of the street
& over there—in front of the fenced-in porches missing slats
like teeth in a punched smile where Garrett’s cousin leaned
against the side of one of the front buildings. She put
two-fingered guns to her temples when she saw us: red patch
of smoker’s skin around her mouth like a raw sun rising.